


Grief is the thing with feathers

by Crazymuggleinthestruggle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Aromantic Natasha Romanov, Deaf Clint Barton, Family Feels, M/M, Only a tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26144602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazymuggleinthestruggle/pseuds/Crazymuggleinthestruggle
Summary: This is how a man like Steve finds his family in Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Sam Wilson and Tony Stark in a world he never thought he would be able to fit in.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, mentioned
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Grief is the thing with feathers

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Max Porter's book 
> 
> The poems are from:  
> A Shropshire Lad 2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now - A. E. Housman  
> A Shropshire Lad 12: When I watch the living meet - A. E. Housman

Steve did love Peggy. Not at all how people assumed, though. He loved her like one of his best friends. His stubborn counterpart and his superior officer. 

Steve loved Tony too. His love for Tony, however, was more like jumping into an ocean despite not knowing how to swim.  
.  
.  
(It was like jumping into an ocean without knowing how to swim, but believing that he'd come out unharmed.)  
.  
.  
(Maybe that was his folly.)

_(Loveliest of trees, the cherry now  
Is hung with bloom along the bough) _

***  
Steve woke up in a cold world seventy years later than he was supposed to. He woke up hoping to see a world where people didn't fight wars. His hopes were, of course, dashed.

However, the fighting introduced him to The Avengers. A medley of people who belonged nowhere.

And this group of misfits became his family.  
.  
.  
(Steve always believed himself to be a realist. Although, sometimes, he felt like an optimist. And that was the real tragedy.)

_(And stands about the woodland ride  
Wearing white for Eastertide) _

***  
Steve met Tony for the first time in the Helicarrier and dissolved into a shouting match with him.

The scepter was the final catalyst that led to Steve snapping at Tony. It wasn't the only thing, though.  
.  
.  
Steve woke up seventy years later in a world that wasn't his own. He didn't know anyone and nobody really knew him. He only existed as Captain America and he made his peace with it. 

Then, he stepped into the Helicarrier and saw Howard Stark. Except, it wasn't. The man was a spitting image of Howard but that's where the similarities ended. The man had none of Howard's brashness or ego, which was obnoxious on the best of days and something worse, something intangible the rest of the time. 

That hurt Steve more than he ever thought it could. It hurt him because this is what Howard could've been.  
.  
.  
(It hurt him because despite it all, this wasn't Howard and when all was said and done, he would've given an arm and a leg to meet Howard one last time.)  
.  
.  
This was before he got to know that Peggy Carter was still alive.  
.  
.  
This was after he got to know Peggy Carter, the brilliant enigma, hardly remembered her own niece, let alone Steve.

_(Now, of my threescore years and ten,  
Twenty will not come again) _

***  
Steve found Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson in a world where he never thought he'd be able to fit in.  
He would find Clint later.

They kept him afloat and asked for nothing in return. They helped him find Bucky and asked nothing in return.

Steve would see Natasha make peace with her past and move on. He'd see her face the day she found the term "aromantic" and be content, armed with the knowledge that the Red Room hadn't really broken her in all the ways it mattered. 

He'd see Clint the day that would happen. The pure love and contentment for someone who was so much more than his sister and best friend, etched across his features. 

He'd see Sam and Bucky be a constant in each other's life. He'd see them try to help each other, all the while struggling to understand their relationship. He'd be there to see them go on their first date and he'd be there to see their faces shining with happiness when they got married.  
.  
.  
(He would see them and recognise the efforts they put into helping him from stagnating. He would learn to recognise his own progress.)

_(And take from seventy springs a score,  
It only leaves me fifty more)_

***  
Steve was big enough to know that it wasn't him who took the first steps to try and set things straight with Tony.

Steve was also big enough to be embarrassed when Tony took the first step and apologised to him and all he had to do was apologise back while actually meaning it.  
.  
.  
It was safe to say that Steve wasn't the one who took the first step and asked Tony out. He was, however, the one who initiated their first kiss. 

Not that it was a competition, of course.  
.  
.  
(To his surprise, he hadn't found it hard to be genuinely sorry to Tony. And maybe that was when he should've recognised his downward spiral.)

_(And since to look at things in bloom  
Fifty springs are little room)_

***  
The first time Steve realised he was in love with Tony, it wasn't a big moment or epiphany or anything.

It had been an easy day which found Steve sketching in Tony's workshop while he worked. There had been nothing new about the moment when he realised he was in love.

Steve had been drawing while Tony had been working. He had looked up to see Tony, Bruce and Clint gesturing to each other. Talking. They had been arguing about the best way to improve Clint's hearing aids.  
Tony had interrupted his monologue to stare at the smoothie with kerosene in it and then proceeded to threaten Dum-E. Donation to a local charity had been the highest on his list of threats.  
All the while, Bruce had looked on with a small smile and Clint had petted Dum-E, declaring his undying love for him.  
Then, Tony had muttered something about spoiling stupid robots who tried to murder him and tried to fight the smile that threatened to spill across his face. 

It was then that he realised he was in love with this ridiculous man.  
.  
.  
Steve had read about big epiphanies, people feeling fireworks popping behind them and a riot of butterflies in their stomach when they realised they were in love.  
.  
.  
In Steve's humble opinion, these people had never been in love.  
.  
.  
Falling in love was an easy feeling. It was a slow and steady process. It was the comfort of one's significant other being near them. It was the unbearable fondness and annoyance and irritation and fear and so many other emotions, all mashed up together. And those mashed up feelings becoming too much to be classified as anything other than _love_ , one day. 

Steve had looked down at his drawing to realise with a start that he had been drawing Tony. Tony with grease on his face. Tony with all his scars and blemishes. He had looked down to realise that despite that, Tony was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.  
.  
.  
"One day. I'll tell Tony one day."  
.  
.  
That day would come. 

Or more appropriately, that _night._

Steve would confess his love for Tony cocooned in the soupy blankets of night. A mumbled speech while Tony slept on peacefully.  
.  
.  
A confession that would eventually not mount up to anything.  
.  
.  
He would regret it one day. Regret all the unspoken words that remained between Tony and him. Regret not being there when Tony actually needed him. Regret not knowing Italian.  
.  
.  
He'd remember Tony's quiet one-sided conversation while eating hot-dogs under the shade of a tree.  
.  
.  
He'd remember the look on Tony's face as he had promised to translate it for Steve one day.  
.  
.  
_(Ti amo così tanto che a volte mi sento esplodesse il cuore nel petto...)_  
.  
.  
Here's something false:  
Tony had thought of translating it for Steve one day.  
.  
.  
Here's something true:  
Tony had never considered the fact that Steve might not know Italian.

_(About the woodlands I will go  
To see the cherry hung with snow)_

***  
It had been a beautiful day when it happened.  
.  
.  
It had been so _Tony_ , Steve had almost laughed.  
.  
.  
It had been a grenade, actually.  
.  
.  
Steve had never stopped to think that Tony would die before him.

That’s a lie. Steve had never _wanted_ to think Tony would die before him.  
.  
.  
It was the only lie Steve ever told himself.  
.  
.  
This was a lie, too.

_(When I watch the living meet,  
And the moving pageant file)_

***  
The Avengers had all been scattered across Brooklyn. The weird robot-chameleon things had spread out way faster that they had ever expected.  
.  
.  
 _‘Divide and decimate’._ That was the oldest rule in the book, after all.

Or maybe it was ‘Divide and rule’.  
.  
.  
It had taken more than an hour before things had started going south. Too many aliens and their hybrids. Too many to fight alone, at least. Steve had registered being mildly impressed with his team-mates and was going to give them orders to meet up somewhere where the proportion of the aliens was the highest. Just then, a totally different group of mercenaries (or maybe they had been in ranks with the aliens) had shown up to fight alongside the monstrous creatures.  
.  
.  
Steve would remember Tony sending out a call to everyone to try and send all the different species of creatures fighting against them closer to where he was. Steve would also remember the brief, but genuine smile that he had aimed towards him before forming a 2 mile radius to block the Avengers’ entry. Steve would remember the soft apology in his comms and the cold dread that chilled him to his bones. 

And Steve would remember the horrible sound of the grenade for the rest of his living days.  
.  
.  
(Steve had never before stopped to think that all of the Avengers would die before him.)  
.  
.  
(That night he would.)

_(Warm and breathing through the street  
Where I lodge a little while)_

***  
The months after Tony’s death would be a blur to Steve. Later, try as he might, he will not be able to remember anything that was said.

Instead, he will remember this: the gleam of Natasha’s hair under the sun, the sombre sheen of Victoria’s hat seeming to complement the subdued hue of Clint’s tie, the rivulets meandering down Rhodes’s rugged face, the pinpricks of pain from his seared palms, the rustle in the trees overhead, the downpour of crisp yellow leaves unleashed by an especially strong current of wind.  
  
He does not cry.  
  
Not when the memories surge back, thousands upon thousands of moments and experiences. The bustle and swelter of mid-morning Milan versus the mist-shrouded and clouded evenings of Paris. Shiny sunburn stretching down an expanse of spine and skin. Beard burn and shared toiletries. Ice cream and indecision. Shirt cuffs and superhero suits  
  
He does not cry.  
  
Because what is the use in crying when Tony is not here to scoff at him, to kiss away his tears, to cry by his side?  
.  
.  
He would have only one memory.

The hologram that Tony had left for him. 

The hologram that he would keep with him even a hundred years later.  
.  
.  
He wouldn’t remember the year Tony died at all.  
.  
.  
He would, however, remember all of his other team members’ deaths. Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Sam, _Bucky_. All claimed by old age or something worse.  
.  
.  
He would remember the day Bucky would tell him his super serum was malfunctioning. Something about it being an imperfect replica of Steve’s, and Bucky’s time in cryogenic sleep counteracting its already dogdey effects.  
.  
.  
He would remember the sadness and the pity in the Avengers’ eyes in the years to come. 

He would remember hating them for the pity, but also hating Erskine for testing the serum on him and hating himself for allowing Erskine to test it on him.  
.  
.  
Then, he would hate himself for hating Erskine because without the serum he would have never met Tony.  
.  
.  
(Because even in death, Tony was the best thing to ever happen to Steve.)

_(If the heats of hate and lust  
In the house of flesh are strong)_

***

**EPILOGUE**

Steve was almost two hundred years old. He _would_ die one day.  
.  
.  
The world was too fast for him, these days. He didn’t have any friends or even acquaintances. The only thing he was left with, were memories. Memories of when he had friends and memories of when he had Tony.  
.  
.  
He worked for the army now. Or some sort of army, anyway. Earth had opened up its doors to all the others living in the Universe. As the number of others grew, so did the enemies. Steve’s main job was to protect Earth from her numerous enemies.  
.  
.  
Steve’s only companion these days was his loneliness.

And the silence. The oppressive throes of silence. 

He had never been one for silence. He had grown up in the back alleys of Brooklyn fighting bullies. Silence had been a mystery there. There had never been any silence or quiet during his time with the Howling Commandos and certainly never while he had been with the Avengers.  
.  
.  
He had one more companion. The hologram. The hologram that Tony had left for him.  
.  
.  
JARVIS had given Steve the helmet in which the hologram had been stored when he went to Tony’s workshop the first time after his death.  
.  
.  
He had never been able to go back again. The place had too many traces and reminders of Tony’s existence.  
.  
.  
Steve hadn’t understood what to do with the helmet for a long time. It had been Natasha and Clint who had found him fiddling with it, late one night. They had been the one who had shown him how to operate it. They had been the one who had brought him tea and let him sleep on their laps, tears streaking his face once he had listened to hologram-Tony's message.  
.  
.  
The technology never bothered Steve. Tony - the brilliant, futuristic genius- his technology had just started meeting its match. A hundred years after his death.  
.  
.  
The helmet was in his cupboard. His most prized possession. The only proof of his time with the Avengers other than a handful of pictures and articles that he had stored out of nostalgia.  
.  
.  
Sometimes, he felt as if he had stored the helmet out of a sense of nostalgia as well. 

Then, he would look at Tony’s hologram, his brown eyes vulnerable and sincere as he translated a snippet of a conversation from too many years ago, and he would be transported back to the spot in the shade and the sense of serenity that flooded him that day.  
.  
.  
“I love you so much that sometimes I feel my heart explode in my chest…”

_(Let me mind the house of dust  
Where my sojourn shall be long)_

.  
.  


(And maybe, somewhere in the universe, Tony had been alive and translated this for Steve with a smile on his face and adoration filling his eyes.)

**Author's Note:**

> Folks, like always, @talloreo is a lovely human being for editing this and she deserves a lot of kudos


End file.
